Giffords aims to aid successor

Former Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords is making a long-awaited push to help her successor, Democrat Ron Barber, in his closely watched race against Republican Martha McSally.

Starting Wednesday, Giffords’ pro-gun control super PAC, Americans for Responsible Solutions, will start airing two TV commercials criticizing McSally for her opposition to legislation expanding background checks. The commercials are the first for the group, which Giffords formed last year.

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Barber won a 2012 special election to replace Giffords, who resigned from Congress that year to focus on her recovery following a mass shooting that nearly took her life. Barber, a former Giffords staffer, also was wounded in the attack.

Neither Giffords nor her husband, retired astronaut Mark Kelly, personally appear in the ads, which were shared first with POLITICO.

In one of them, a narrator says: “In southern Arizona, almost everyone supports background checks for people buying a gun. So why does Martha McSally support the loophole that allows criminals and the dangerously mentally ill to buy guns without a check?”

Another features a testimonial from a woman whose daughter was the victim of gun violence. “Martha McSally supports the gun show loophole,” she says. “McSally got a lot of money from the lobbyists who also support the gun show loophole. To McSally, it’s just politics; but to me, it’s personal.”

A McSally spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.

Americans for Responsible Solutions has said it will invest in congressional races across the country this year and that it would make Barber’s race in the Arizona’s 2nd District, which spans a swath of the state’s south, a priority.

Since leaving the House, Giffords, who was shot in the head during the January 2011 attack, has maintained a close relationship with Barber.

A spokesman for the group, Mark Prentice, said it was spending “six figures” to air the Arizona commercials on broadcast and cable stations for at least two weeks.

The race is one of the most competitive in the country. Republicans have described McSally, the first female Air Force pilot to fly in combat, as one of their top recruits this election year. Americans for Responsible Solutions said it had taken a poll of the race in mid-July and found Barber leading McSally by a slim margin of 47 percent to 41 percent.

Last year, Barber co-sponsored a bill that would expand background checks on gun sales. His campaign would not comment specifically on Giffords’ entrance into the contest, instead releasing a statement saying, “Ron Barber supports the same commonsense, bipartisan solutions that Southern Arizona supports.”